nou, perceiving no prospect of succour, and considering further resistance unavailing, on the 26th offered to capitulate, on the same terms granted to Belliard, at Cairo, which was acceded to. Thus ended the grand expedition to Egypt.Previous to this, a negociation. had been opened between the two governments. Egypt had interposed the greatest obstacle to a pacification, Buonaparte being determined to retain it; but this difficulty became less serious as the prospect of retaining that country became less favorable, and the 2d of October announced the conclusion of a treaty of peace between Great Britain and the French Republic. With such secrecy were the negociations conducted, that the preceding day, this event was not remotely expected. The tidings flew upon the wings of the wind, and excited the most inconceivable transports of joy throughout both countries.

The period at which we close this chapter was a most important one in Buonaparte's life, and seemed a crisis on which his fate, and that of France, depended. Britain, his most inveterate and most successful enemy, had seen herself compelled by circumstances to resort to the experiment of a doubtful peace, rather than continue a war which seemed to be waged without an object. The severe checks to national prosperity, which arose from the ruined commerce and blockaded ports of France, might now, under the countenance of the First Consul, be exchanged for the wealth that waits upon trade and manufactures. Her navy, of which few vestiges were left save the Brest fleet, might now be recruited, and resume by degrees that acquaintance with the ocean from which they had long been debarred. The restored colonies of France might have added to the sources of her national wealth, and she might have possessed-what Buonaparte on a remarkable occasion declared to be the principal objects he de sired for her-ships, colonies and commerce.

CHAP. X.

[usurrection in St Domingo. Horrible system of warfare between the French and Negroes. Buonaparte proceeds to consolidate his power at home. Consular Guards and Legion of Honor. Renewal of the war with England. Hanover and other places occupied by the French.Scheme of invading England continued. Napoleon finally abandons the project.

WHEN the treaty of Amiens appeared to have restored peace to Europe, one of Buonaparte's first enterprises was to attempt the recovery of the French possessions in the large, rich and valuable colony cf St. Domingo, the disasters of which island form a terrible episode in the history of the war. The convulsions of the French Revolution had reached St Domingo, and, catching like fire to combustibles, had bred a violent feud between the white people in the island, and the mulattoes, the latter of whom demanded to be admitted into the privileges and immunities of the former; the newly established rights of men, as they alleged, having no reference to the distinction of color. While the whites and the people of color were thus engaged in a civil war, the negro slaves, the most oppressed and most numerous class of the population, arose against both parties, and rendered the whole island one scene of bloodshed and conflagration. The few planters who remained invited the support of the British arms, which easily effected a temporary conquest. But the European soldiery perished so fast through the influence of the climate, that, in 1798, the English were glad to abandon an island, which had proved the grave of so many of her best and bravest, who had fallen without a wound, and void of re

nown.

The negroes, left to themselves, divided into different parties, who submitted to the authority of chiefs more or less independent of each other, many of whom displayed considerable talent Of these the principal leader was Toussaint Le Ouverture, who, after waging war like a savage, appears to have used the power which victory procured him with much political skill. Although himself a negro, he had the sagacity to perceive how important it was for the civilization of his subjects, that they should not be deprived of the opportunities of knowledge, and examples of industry, afforded them by the white people. He, therefore, protected and encour

aged the latter, and established as an equitable regulation, that the blacks, now freemen, should nevertheless continue to labor the plantations of the white colonists, while the preduce of the estate should be divided in certain proportions between the white proprietor and the sable cultivator.

The least transgressions of these regulations he punished with African ferocity. On one occasion, a white female, the owner of a plantation, had been murdered by the negroes by whom it was labored, and who had formerly been her slaves. Toussaint marched to the spot at the head of a party of his horse-guards, collected the negroes belonging to the plantation, and surrounded them with his black cavalry, who, after a very brief inquiry, received orders to charge and cut them to pieces; of which order our informant witnessed the execu tion. His unrelenting rigor, joined to his natural sagacity, soon raised Toussaint to the chief command of the island; and he availed himself of the maritime peace, to consolidate his authority by establishing a constitution on the model most lately approved of in France, which being that of the year Eight, consisted of a consular government. Toussaint failed not, of course, to assume the supreme government to himself, with power to name his successor.

The constitution of St. Domingo was instantly put in force, although, with an ostensible deference to France, the sanc tion of her government had been ceremoniously required. It was evident that the African, though not unwilling to acknowledge some nominal degree of sovereignty on the part of France, was determined to retain in his own hands the effective government of the colony. But this in no respect consisted with the plans of Buonaparte, who was impatient to restore to France those possessions of which the British naval superiority had so long deprived her-colonies, shipping and com

merce

A powerful expedition was fitted out at the harbors of Brest, L'Orient and Rochefort, destined to restore St. Domingo in full subjection to the French empire. The fleet amounted to thirty-four ships bearing forty guns and upwards, with more than twenty frigates and smaller armed vessels. They had on board above twenty thousand men, and General Leclerc, the brother-in-law of Buonaparte, was commander-in-chief of the expedition, having a staff composed of officers of acknowledged skill and bravery.

The armament set sail on the 14th of December 1801, while an English squadron of observation, uncertain of their

purpose, waited upon and watched their progress to the West Indies. The French fleet presented themselves before Cape Francois, (now Cape Haytien,) on the 29th January 1802.

Toussaint, summoned to surrender, seemed at first inclined to come to an agreement, terrified probably by the great force of the expedition, which time and the climate could alone afford the negroes any chance of resisting. A letter was delivered to him from Buonaparte, expressing esteem for his person; and General Leclerc offered him the most favorable terms, together with the situation of lieutenant-governor.Ultimately, however, Toussaint could not make up his mind to trust the French, and he determined upon resistance, which he managed with considerable skill. Nevertheless, the wellconcerted military operations of the whites soon overpowered for the present the resistance of Toussaint and his followers. Chief after chief surrendered, and submitted themselves to General Leclerc. At length Toussaint Le Ouverture himself seems to have despaired of being able to make further resistance. He made his formal submission, and received and accepted Leclerc's pardon, under the condition that he should retire to a plantation at Genaives, and never leave it without permission of the commander-in-chief.

The French had not long had possession of the colony, ere they discovered, or supposed they had, symptoms of conspiracy amongst the negroes, and Toussaint was, on very slight grounds, accused as encouraging a revolt. Under this allegation, the only proof of which was a letter, capable of an innocent interpretation, the unfortunate chief was seized upon, with his family, and put on board of a vessel bound to France. Nothing official was ever learned concerning his fate, further than that he was imprisoned in the castle of Jeux, in Franche Compte, where the unhappy African fell a victim to the severity of an Alpine climate, to which he was unaccustomed, and the privations of a close confinement.

The perfidy with which the French had conducted themselves towards Toussaint, was visited by early vengeance.That scourge of Europeans, the yellow fever, broke out among their troops, and in an incredibly short space of time swept off General Leclerc, with many of his best officers and bravest soldiers The negroes, incensed at the conduct of the governor towards Toussaint, and encouraged by the sickly condition of the French army, rose upon them in every quarter. A species of war ensued, of which we are thankful it is not our task to trace the deplorable and ghastly par

ticulars. The cruelty which was perhaps to be expected in the savage Africans, just broke loose from the bondage of slavery, communicated itself to the civilized French. If the fmer tore out their prisoners' eyes with corkscrews, the latter drowned their captives by hundreds, which imitation of Carrier's republican baptism, they called "deportation into the sea." On other occasions, numerous bodies of negroes were confined in hulks, and there smothered to death with the fumes of lighted sulpher. The issue of this hellish warfare was, that the cruelty of the French enraged instead of terrifying their savage antagonists; and at length, that the numbers of the former, diminished by disease and constant skirmishing, became unequal to the defence even of the garrison towns of the island, much more so to the task of reconquering it.— General Rochambeau, who succeeded Leclerc as commanderin-chief, was finally obliged to save the wreck of that fine army, by submitting at discretion to an English squadron, 1st December 1803. Thus was the richest colony in the West Indies finally lost to France. Remaining entirely in possession of the black population, St. Domingo will show, in process of time, how far the natives of Africa, having European civilization within their reach, are capable of forming a state governed by the usual rules of polity.

While Buonaparte made these strong efforts for repossessing France in this fine colony, it was not to be supposed that he was neglecting the establishment of his own power upon a more firm basis. His present situation was-like every other in life-considerably short of what he could have desired, though so infinitely superior to all that his most unreasonable wishes could at one time have aspired to. He had all the real power of royalty, and, since the settlement of his authority for life, he had daily assumed more of the pomp and circumstance with which sovereignty is usually invested. The Tuilleries were once more surrounded with guards without, and filled by levees within. The ceremonial of a court was revived, and Buonaparte, judging of mankind with accuracy, neglected no minute observance by which the princes of the earth are wont to enforce their authority. Policy seemed to recommend to him, to have recourse to the ancient model, which Europe had been long accustomed to reverence; to adopt the form of government best known and longest established through the greater part of the world; and assuming the title and rights of a monarch, to take his place among the ancient and recognised authorities of Europe.